Tantillus & bicycles

You guys were right - I wasn't sleeping when I got home from VHS tonight - after my Tantillus was finally printing parts like a professional! Barely a newborn, this printer rocks. (thanks to all the great advice and help from the nice folks at the build night).

Anyway, I load up Tanitllus in it's cozy little bike travel box and on to the Xtracycle for its relatively gentle, but dark - with some unexpected bumps, ride home (~ 5km). Get home, grab a pint to celebrate the printer's graduation to 'print' status, start to load some filament and BANGO!! extruder separates at the largest transition it's got. Not suprising when I look at it, as the motor hangs freely from the base, and with the repeated small slams it would get on the back of a rigid bike - it wants nothing more than to separate there (see image).

The beauty of all this is that I actually smiled when I saw it because I know I can just rig this one to work well enough to re-print the extruder (possibly with a more bike-friendly geometry - I'll be sure to share, of course. Nonetheless, I'm totally not bummed, which is quite a quantum perspective change from not having a printer...

I have another grey extruder body already printed if you would like to replace it. You could also epoxy it back together if you're in a hurry. Maybe we could add a little part under the extruder motor attached to the case to support the weight of the motor?

I will try and think of some way to make the extruder body stronger for the future. Strange thing is I sent an assembled machine to Japan and it made it there without any issues. It was also all packed in foam so maybe the motor was supported to some degree.

Sounds like an emotional roller-coaster of a night, glad to hear you got it to print

Maybe brushing some super glue or other type of bonding agent on the outside of your extruder could help hold the layers together a bit more? I've been meaning to look into that sort of thing - hoping to find some sort of dip that I can dunk my part in if I want to beef them up a bit. Will let everyone know if I ever find anything worthwhile.

Sublime Wrote:
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> That sucks
>
> I have another grey extruder body already printed
> if you would like to replace it. You could also
> epoxy it back together if you're in a hurry. Maybe
> we could add a little part under the extruder
> motor attached to the case to support the weight
> of the motor?
>
I lathered the srfs in CA last night and added small fillets (of CA) to the intersection, and held in place with a network of elastics. I went to bed when I realized that the hole I drilled to hold the two parts together with a bolt was through parts that were already held together with bolts.

Anyway, thanks for the offer Sublime, but I'm sure I can make this go. I'm going to try and do some creative zip tying I think to ensure it doesn't come apart.

Eric Young Wrote:
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> Sounds like an emotional roller-coaster of a
> night, glad to hear you got it to print
>
Good use of the icon - as soon as I got home, I poured a pint and cheersed Tantillus

> Maybe brushing some super glue or other type of
> bonding agent on the outside of your extruder
> could help hold the layers together a bit more?
> I've been meaning to look into that sort of thing
> - hoping to find some sort of dip that I can dunk
> my part in if I want to beef them up a bit. Will
> let everyone know if I ever find anything
> worthwhile.

That's an interesting thought. And it's sorta what I did in adding a 'fillet' of cyanoarcylate to the intersection of the split parts. A full dunk would be interesting - maybe expensive. Maybe a surface weld with heat, like a little custom-shaped iron from cutlery or something?

This splicing of Tantillus prints is of absolute interest to me, So I'll be sure to continue to think about it. And I'm keen to hear the ideas of you big brains out there.

Try an older version of Pronterface. It may have been updated to use the new Slic3r config system which breaks the config into three parts and stores them separately. Although I see no need to run Slic3r through pronterface since we can print from SD which means we never need to open pronterface at all.

Sublime Wrote:
...snip
> Maybe
> we could add a little part under the extruder
> motor attached to the case to support the weight
> of the motor?
>
Would it be better to add lugs to the part that snapped off or the part next down that bolts to the stepper and bolt it back to the case ?

TCase Wrote:
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> Sublime Wrote:
> ...snip
> > Maybe
> > we could add a little part under the extruder
> > motor attached to the case to support the
> weight
> > of the motor?
> >
> Would it be better to add lugs to the part that
> snapped off or the part next down that bolts to
> the stepper and bolt it back to the case ?
>
> Tony Case

The problem I see with that is it should be compatible with the fully printed case which does not have a flat inside wall or the same space next to the motor mount. But the fully printed case does have a lip at the bottom that a panel fits into where you mount the electronics and the motor happens to sit right on.